Wednesday, October 07, 2009

States Abandoning Touchscreen Voting EquipmentMonday August 18, 2008State governments in California, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico and Tennessee are abandoning practically new electronic touchscreen voting equipment, according to McClatchy. The replacement? Optical scan equipment, meaning that there is a paper ballot marked by the voter herself. That paper ballot is scanned for counting on election day but can be counted by hand if necessary in a re-count. Paper ballots + optical scan = transparency, a key to both effective government and well-designed interfaces (where we call it making actions visible). Election Data Services says that 55 percent of us will use paper ballots this election and that 4-in-10 will use a different voting system than in 2004.

According to EDS, only about a third of us will use touchscreens this election, compared to more than half in 2006. If you're in a touchscreen state or precinct, I say just vote absentee (if it's legal in your state).

Why the pushback? Electronic touchscreen voting systems, rushed into place with too little oversight after 2000's hanging chads, resulted in billions simply thrown at the problem by Congress. They have proved to be security risks and troublesome on election day. In both the Ohio and New Jersey presidential primaries, there were issues with touchscreens. And in four recent elections in France, voting discrepancies were higher in polling places with electronic voting systems than places using paper ballots.

Unfortunately, the federal Election Assistance Commission remains behind the eight-ball in certifying equipment. That means a lot of states have to decide between buying "new" and uncertified or "old" (and maybe buggy) and certified.

Florida's 2006 was "deja vu all over again," as machines malfunctioned in Sarasota County. ES&S voting machines failed to record 18,000 possible votes in the 13th Congressional District race. Undervoting in absentee ballots was 2.5 percent for this race, but it was about 15 percent (1-in-7) for votes cast on electronic voting machines.

The new governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, tossed them last year.

In battleground state Ohio, the secretary of state is suing Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions) and asking the state legislature to ditch their millions-of-dollars investment for optical scan equipment. The questionable equipment was used in 53 of Ohio's 88 counties in 2006.

Our commitment has been to provide viewers with an effort to find truth on a variety of public policy issues, and relay findings, to expand a base of knowledge for viewer information and opinion-forming, no matter one's political affiliation.

We see danger for us all on three fronts:

An announced potential for a global financial crisis and projected global currency, global government, and new world order.

A coming to fruition plan for some 34 states to propose a uniform amendment or amendments to the U.S. Constitution which may automatically present an Article V Convention.

An organized effort by populists to support state legislatures to call an Article V Convention for any number of reasons.

We continue to work to present the kind of information to convince viewers to be ever vigilant. No matter whom we cite on our pages, when we find groups, organizations, political Parties, or notable individuals in support of any one of the above, we are wary, no matter if we agree on other issues of importance.

We have for instance cited Judge Napolitano's Freedom series on the Constitution broadcast on Fox Nation, yet we remain strongly wary of him due to his stated position to encourage Tea Party participants and others to push state legislatures to adopt a resolution to call for a 2nd Convention.

We cannot stress how important it is for your objection to be heard to your own state's legislature and Governor. According to tracking results from some notables including DeWeese and Gary Kreeps - barring it may be ruled previous resolutions adopted by an individual state and already on the formal-call list are voided due to non-uniformity or outdatedness - there may already be some 31 or 32 potentially valid Convention Calls.

34 state resolutions are the magic number which will initiate, basically automatically, a call for convening an Article V Convention.

This site also notes an essay by Gary Kreep, co-founder of the United States Justice Foundation. He too notes how very close an automatic Constitutional Convention call is given factors that even include some states' attempts to rescind former calls.

We also note an article by Kelleigh Nelson Saving the Republic Part 3 which disputes an automatic call is only some two states away. We also note Nelson's reference to a book we also have in our files which is among the best we've read.

Constitution In Crisis Joan Collins and Ken Hill

We'll list other material relied upon to come to the conclusion that despite how many states in actuality have standing convention calls, action is paramount today to thwart a potential gathering storm for support such as Rand Paul's and Judge Andrew Napalitano's.

Our hope is to be among those who continue to warn it is imperative a 2nd Constitutional Convention never happen. The mechanism for Congress to act on presenting its own Amendment or Amendments to the Constitution is already in place. The normal route has not been used all that much because it is known the Amendment or Amendments which are then ratified by the next step - states ratification process - will stand as an alteration of the U.S. Constitution unless and until a subsequent Congress mounts a similar process to repeal the Amendment.

So many others have long-standing in noting the absolute dangers of an Article V Convention.

Among them:

Phyllis Schlafly

McManus

John Birch Society

World Net Daily

We do not claim support with the named on every issue.

It is crucial we, the people of the United States prevent our representatives from enacting any measures that take away U.S. sovereignty and curb or curtail individual and unalienable rights.

You can help by becoming informed and using the power of the pen to attempt to convince such as Rand Paul and Judge Andrew Napolitano of these noted dangers of an Article V Constitutional Convention.

Climatologist Skeptic James Spann

Incognito for security purposes

My blog was caught twice in a robot spam review and had been offline for several months. Fortunately, Blogger Help Forum exchanges with a real person and top contributor resulted in Net the Truth Online being deemed OK. Should the spam-robots misidentify us again, here's where and what happened. My blog pre=this=mess was going just fine. Then I received notice while away my blog was deleted. Help. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=1714c2aa73405a98&hl=en&fid=1714c2aa73405a980004933503778adc